“You, Of All People, Deserve A Happy Ending. Despite Everything That Happened To You, You Aren’t

Vintage book covers

—Ursula K. Le Guin, from a 1988 interview, collected in Ursula K. Le Guin: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations (Melville House, 2019)

Barry Lategan - Moyra Swan Wearing Dresses by Mila Schön (Vogue Italia 1970)

Paintings from the ‘Peripety’ series by Jen Mazza

Dark Academia aesthetics by university major: part 3

Part 1 // Part 2

Languages and Linguistics

Old papers in foreign scripts. That place between sleep and wakefulness where dreams bleed into reality. Tea in fine china. Riddles. A crystal chandelier that catches the light and sends sunspots across the room. A haunting melody from a lone violin. Whispers in candle-light.

Law

Coffee rings on a newspaper. A confident swagger through grand, austere courthouses. Red lips, turtlenecks, trench coats. Old parchment. Ink smudges on fingers and face and clothes. Slumping piles of research in dim lamplight. A laugh that chimes like bells but hides something darker. Red wine. Trilling piano.

Criminology

A dream of a bloodstained dagger. Black coffee, wild eyes, shaking fingers. Excited whispers in dark hallways. Frantic notes and connections, chaotic and smudged and hardly discernible. Crosswords. Cold waves crashing against a cliff. Puzzle pieces fitting together. You spin until you’re dizzy.

Education

Passion that seizes your soul and locks your limbs and loosens your lips until the words come pouring out. Wild gesticulations. A Victorian office adorned with old maps, and books, and memorabilia. Secret passages. Clandestine lectures and secret societies. Giddy smiles and narrowed eyes. You hold hands and run.

Architecture 

Meticulous notes, calculations and drawings. Getting lost in other worlds. Measured breaths, hopeful looks. Precise footsteps that draw closer. A Greek statue that seems mournful, somehow, and you can’t look away. Dreams of spires, and and stone, and marble. Birdsong.

Theatre/Performing arts

A human skull upon a stack of paper. Collapsing dramatically into a fainting chair. Passionate love confessions with tragic ends. Shakespeare and Baudelaire. Dancing on tables in restricted rooms. Nefarious plots. Blood pacts. Violent string concertos. 

Business/Marketing

Tweed blazers, leather shoes. Fancy dinner parties, where everyone knows more than they’re saying. Fiery arguments. Gothic architecture. Brandy. Fingers tapping on a wooden table. A simple but meaningful pendant. A wink from someone you think you know.  

Part 4 coming soon

The Russian artist and passionate about nature, Anastasia Trusova, works with what she calls “Textured Graphic Impressionism”, a unique style.

god idk how to draw anymore.

Lamentations: A Monument for the Dead World (1985) dir. R. Bruce Elder

Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma